Author's Note:

Well, here it is, finally, My own take on the PJ Masks' origin story.

I actually started writing this shortly after finishing posting my first PJ Masks story, which was nearly a year ago. Kind of pathetic how long it took me to write this, really. For the first few months my progress was very slow, and then I suddenly got sidetracked by two completely different fandoms and two or three different fanfic ideas for each of those, one of which I actually started writing. Then I got sidetracked again by yet another completely different series and more fanfic ideas, one of which I not only started writing, but finished and posted. AND THEN I encountered yet another show that took over all of my inspiration and fanfic-plot-formulating. It was a very interesting few months lol. I've been afraid to watch anything new since then out of fear that I'll get sidetracked/obsessed yet again… I want to get at least some of the probably dozen story ideas I formulated in those months written down first before getting bombarded with even more ideas!

Anyway, once that died down a bit, I was finally able to finish this, through sheer force of will more than anything else. The sad thing is, this story really isn't all that long, especially coming from me. It's five chapters, plus an epilogue. And I'm not sure how happy I am with the final product; however, given how long of a haul the writing of this was, I feel like I should post it so that I at least have something to show for how long this has been in the works.

And yes, it is an origin story. I know I'm not the first to tackle this, and I know other authors have gone into the PJ's origins both before I started writing this and during. The only origin story in this fandom I have read is Bouken Dutch's, and while there are a few basic similar story elements (mostly by coincidence), I took care to take a different approach with mine, drawing some inspiration from the original Les Pyjamasques book series but mostly from my own thoughts and ideas. Again, I haven't read any others PJ origin fanfics, so if this is similar to anyone else's story, then it's simply a coincidence.

I'll post chapters every few days—the fic's short length means that it won't take me very long to finish lol.

I hope you enjoy! Please feel free to review with any comments, questions, or critiques you may have. :)

…

Space.

Its vast emptiness is a desolate void in which to seek refuge. And yet many do, as the very vastness of that void makes it an ideal hiding place.

Queen Frilu of the planet Ahjom was not so lucky, however.

Her sorceress, Bihsuni, had alerted her as soon as she'd sensed the presence of their pursuers, and one glance at the monitor was all it took to confirm the grave warning. The king, Frilu's husband, had discovered her betrayal. He had followed her.

And there was only one fate that awaited traitors to the Ahjomite empire. Even if the traitor was its own queen.

Frilu sighed in resignation as she studied the fleet sent to annihilate them. Their ships were larger, stronger than her own cruiser with which she had left the planet. They'd be in range to destroy her and her ship long before she was in range to fire any defensive shots. And they'd be in range before she could safely land on the planet Earth, where she had hoped to flee.

There was no escape.

The softest of sighs echoed her own. Frilu turned her head to find Bihsuni hovering at her side, perched atop her hoverboard. "I was right, wasn't I," she said, her inflection not really indicating any sort of question.

Frilu nodded anyway. "Unfortunately… yes." She glanced at her sorceress, the one true confidant and friend to whom she had been able to disclose her desire to stop, or at the very least to get away from, the increasingly genocidal ways of their people. Earth had seemed a good bet; the Ahjomites had attempted a takeover there over a thousand of their years ago, but strong warriors had driven them away. But even the threat of the aliens' further resistance hadn't been enough to deter her people. Frilu was hardly surprised. She had been well aware that her defection could very well seal her death. Her worries, at that moment, lay elsewhere. They lay with Bihsuni's fate. With the fate of her faithful Zigli servants.

With the fate of her son, and Bihsuni's daughter.

"Where are the children?" she asked Bihsuni.

"They are playing with the Zigli." Bihsuni's face betrayed no emotions. "The maintenance pods should send them to the planet's surface safely."

"Can—"

"No. The pods are only large enough for the children. Not for us."

Frilu's heart sank, but she kept a brave face. "We must get them off the ship and send them to the planet. It is their only chance."

"I agree." Bihsuni turned away from the monitors and hovered back down the hallway, and Frilu, seeing no reason to sit and watch her imminent demise, followed her. "And we must wipe their memories. If they remember any of this, or what is about to happen, it would be too traumatic."

Frilu drew in her breath. "That seems a bit extreme…"

"We're about to die, Your Highness. Of course it's extreme." Bihsuni pressed her hand against a control pad and opened a door, revealing their two children, oblivious to all the strife and turmoil surrounding their mothers, laughing as they wrestled each other, the small Zigli royal servants laughing and cheering them on.

Frilu's composure finally was stripped away as the urgency and finality of their situation slammed into her. "Trokim," she whispered.

Her son perked up at the sound of his name, although giving his mother only the vaguest of smiles. "Mother, can I order Soroly to always let me win at wrestling?"

"You'll always lose as long as I have my sorcery magnet!" Soroly responded tauntingly, waving said orb-like magnet in his face.

Bihsuni was not as stunted with grief as her queen was. "Come, Soroly," she said abruptly, grabbing her daughter by the shoulders and leading her down the next hallway, where a pair of pods for outer maintenance of the queen's vessel lay, until now only used by the Zigli for various repairs on the ship's exterior. "You have to go."

"Go where?" Soroly demanded in protest. "We're in space!"

"Exactly," Bihsuni said, opening the pod door and shoving her daughter inside.

Soroly yelped in terror, a clear note of panic in her voice. "No! Trokim!" she shrieked, reaching out for her friend.

Forcefully, Bihsuni shoved Soroly to the floor of the pod and whipped out her magnet, activating it to hold Soroly in place. "I'm sorry, my daughter, but there is no other way."

"Soroly!" Trokim cried out, making a move towards the pods. Frilu grabbed him and held him tight, her tears trickling down his fine, white hair as Bihsuni spoke the memory wipe incantation.

"You can't wipe her memory," Frilu begged. "There must be another way. She and Trokim will forget each other…"

"They will find each other again," Bihsuni declared once finishing the chant, Soroly now in a half-conscious, trancelike state. Her mother gently pressed her fingers to her forehead. "And I will give them all the knowledge that the Empire has of Earth." She stroked back a wisp of her daughter's sparkling white hair, her voice breaking for the first time. "I am sorry, my dear Soroly. I wish I could do more for you." She placed Soroly's sorcery magnet on her chest, and then, almost as an afterthought, placed her own hoverboard on her chest as well before quickly sealing the pod and pressing a button on the side panel. The pod ejected from the ship and went spinning down towards the small blue planet in the distance.

"No! Soroly!" Trokim screamed, struggling against his mother. "What did you do to her?!"

Trembling, Bihsuni motioned for Trokim.

"Please, no—Mother, help me!" Trokim pleaded.

Frilu sobbed as she relinquished Trokim to Bihsuni. "This is the only way, Trokim. I'm so sorry. I love you!"

"No!" screamed Trokim, only able to make one step back towards his mother before Bihsuni caught him in her magnet's beam.

The Zigli servants gathered around Frilu, their voices a concerned din of protests.

"Your Highness, what's going on?"

"Are we in danger, Your Highness?"

"You can't send him there alone."

Frilu gazed at the Zigli, their faces showing their determination to continue to serve their young charge no matter what the consequences, even as Bihsuni began the memory wipe spell on him. She nodded heavily. "Those that wish, go with him. Serve him. Take care of him. And don't tell him the truth until the time is right."

The Zigli leaped into the pod with their young prince in twos, cramming themselves into the tight space, their movements throwing Bihsuni off of her already shaky spell.

A shudder shook through the ship.

"Eject them, now!" Frilu demanded.

Bihsuni released the magnet's beam on the semiconscious prince, the small Zigli crowding around him in the small pod as best they could, and she quickly sealed the pod door and launched it towards the planet as well, trailing after the pod containing her daughter.

She looked towards Frilu, shaken. "The spell may not have worked perfectly… the memory wipe may not have been one hundred percent complete."

"As long as they survive," Frilu said firmly. "That's all that's important. I—I'm sorry that I'm unable to say the same for you. I'm sorry that you will pay the ultimate price for my actions."

"You are my queen; I will follow you to the end… obviously." Bihsuni finally gave Frilu a shaky, yet defiant smile. "Besides, I was hating the way the empire was heading just as much as you were."

Frilu smiled back, reaching out to grasp Bihsuni's hand as another shockwave ripped through the ship, and their grip tightened as everything fell apart in fiery explosions around them and plummeted towards Earth.

…

The summer evening breeze wafted through the open window as six-year-old Connor Landry sketched an impression of the leaves dancing outside the window.

For nearly every other activity, Connor hated sitting still. Life was in constant motion and the young boy hated to miss any second of it, often even leaving his two best friends (and neighbors) Amaya Devereaux and Greg Simon in the dust. The only thing he couldn't understand was why everyone else ambled along so slowly. Why wait?

But when sketching and drawing, time slowed down. Connor's eye for detail was strong enough to overpower his usual fast pace. Every stroke of his pencil was careful and deliberate. Of course, being only six years old, his work wasn't going to be hanging in museums yet, but it still held more care and precision than what most other kids his age could do.

The leaves rustled again in the breeze, pulling Connor's attentions away from his sketchpad and out his bedroom window once more, noticing for the first time how dark it had gotten. His mom had told him to go to bed a full half an hour ago, at least… and even though it was a long June day, the sun had finally set. Surprised, Connor closed his sketchbook and placed it on his nightstand, yawning a bit with sudden fatigue. How long had he been drawing, anyway? Good thing his pajamas were already on and his teeth had been brushed.

A small walkie-talkie to the side of this sketchbook cracked to life. "Come in, Connor."

Connor grinned, picking it up and pressing the button. "Hey Greg. What's up?"

Greg's voice sounded rather sheepish. "I think I might have left my bicycle helmet at your house."

A third voice cut in with an amused giggle. "Oh, Greg," Amaya laughed. "That's the third time this week."

"Only the second!" Greg protested. "Yesterday I found it like a minute after I asked you about it, so that one doesn't count. Anyway, Connor, is it in your room?"

"I don't see it, but let me double-check." Connor slid off his bed and glanced at his nightstand to confirm that it wasn't there before plodding over towards his desk.

"I might have left it downstairs in your living room," Greg admitted, "and I know you're probably supposed to already be asleep now, so I don't expect you to leave your room to go check, I just thought on the off-chance that it might be in your room…"

"I still don't—" Connor's scan of his room halted suddenly when his eyes reached his desk. "…see it," he finished quietly, surprised at what he did see.

It was small and blue, the same dark blue of his pajamas, and it looked to be like some sort of bracelet or wristband. Taking a step closer to examine it, he saw a symbol on it that looked similar to a cat's face. He held a hand poised in the air, feeling strongly compelled to touch the newfound object, and yet hesitating due to just how odd it was. "Hey, guys?" he asked unsteadily. "Did one of you lose a blue bracelet?" Which seemed like a silly question when the bracelet was his favorite color and adorned with a symbol of his favorite animal… Connor couldn't shake the feeling that this wristband had been made specifically for him, but… that was impossible, right?

"I haven't," Greg said.

"Me neither," Amaya said. "Why do you…"

Her voice trailed off, and Connor felt the nervous pit in his stomach double in size. "Uh, Amaya?" he asked.

"This… this is weird." Amaya's voice crackled over the walkie-talkie with more than just static. "There's a red bracelet on my nightstand that I've never seen before. I… don't suppose it's yours?"

Connor drew in his breath. "No. Is… is there a cat symbol on it?"

"No, it—it looks like some sort of bird."

"Wait a minute," Connor exclaimed, his brain finally grasping an explanation that still inexplicably felt off. "Did you leave these here for us, Greg? Are these surprise presents or something?"

"No, they're not from me," Greg said, sounding a touch confused himself. "Are you sure you guys didn't have these before—oh, NO WAY!"

"You have one too?!" Connor yelped.

"Yeah—it's green, and it looks like there's a lizard symbol on it." Greg's tone of voice was now as alarmed as his two friends'. "I've never seen this before in my life! This is freaky! Where did it come from?"

"What should we do?" Amaya asked urgently.

"I—I don't know," Connor admitted. "Should we tell our parents?"

"Why would we tell them?" Amaya questioned. "And what could they do about it?"

"They should know if—if someone's breaking into our houses and leaving things," Connor explained, uneasily.

"Don't most people who break into houses take things instead of leave things?" Greg pointed out.

"Maybe it was our parents who left them," Connor offered, trying to again ignore the feeling that the words coming out of his mouth were one hundred percent untrue. "Maybe they left them for us as a surprise gift or something."

"I don't know, Connor," Amaya admitted, her voice betraying a hesitant anxiety. "I just… have this weird feeling that these weren't left here by anyone we know."

"Me too," Greg admitted.

Connor gulped. Whatever unexplained intuition he had about this wristband was shared by his friends. "Me too."

There was silence for a few moments.

"I… I feel like I should touch it," Amaya finally said, tentatively.

"Yeah… it feels like mine's calling out to me," Greg added, his voice shaky. "What… what should we do?"

Connor gripped his walkie-talkie in his hand, his eyes growing wide. Why were they waiting for his permission? Were they waiting for his guidance just because he was older than them? He wasn't even that much older than them—they were all in the same grade, after all!

"Let's touch them together," he finally decided, hoping that his voice sounded brave enough for their sakes. "On the count of three. Are you ready?"

"Ready," said Amaya.

"Ready," said Greg.

They were nervous, Connor could hear it in their voices, so he'd have to be brave enough for all three of them.

"Alright. On three. One… two… THREE!"

He quickly grabbed the wristband by the cat symbol, and the whole room spun in a blaze of blue.